Pro Wrestling Facts: Useless or Otherwise

Brian Damage

Welcome back or welcome “fact” to pro wrestling’s useless facts, stats, trivia tidbits and whatever else you want to call them. Some of these facts you may be well versed in, while others not so much. In either scenario, they are all meant to be harmless fun for the whole family. So sit back and learn…or not.

Nitro Girl ‘Spice’ auditioned and got the role of co-hosting the revamped WCW Saturday show under her real name of Melissa Bellin. Before she debuted, the Saturday show was cancelled. She was ultimately released.

Hulk Hogan’s last match in the WWF in 1993 was against Yokozuna. His first match back with the company in 2002 was against Yoko’s cousin Rikishi.

The Ultimate Warrior was offered a role in TNA’s launch in 2002. Warrior demanded a 15% ownership stake for him to join the upstart company which was declined.

Jim Hellwig was a part of two different tag teams that attempted to mimic the success of the Road Warriors. The first had Hellwig teaming with Steve (Sting) Borden as ‘The Blade Runners.’ The second was a team created by Fritz Von Erich and Gary Hart that very briefly featured Hellwig as ‘The Dingo Warrior’ and his partner Mark Miller as ‘Socko Warrior.’

Scott Hall was arrested a total of 16 times in one full calendar year at the height of his drug and alcohol addiction.

There is no “The” in Bullet Club’s name. Fergal Devitt (Finn Balor) chose not to add a ‘the’ in the faction’s name to make it sound more menacing and impactful.

Steve Austin and Booker T cost over $10,000 in damage to a real supermarket in their classic brawl. The supermarket was rented out for the entire day by Vince McMahon and all of the patrons inside were paid extras.

The rat used in various Mankind promos was named ‘George’ and was the real life pet of Jim Cornette.

The grave of Japanese legend Tomomi ‘Jumbo’ Tsuruta stands 6 feet 3 inches tall and lists all of his accomplishments as a pro wrestler. There is also a photo of Tsuruta on the grave stone which sees him wearing the AWA world title.

In the year 2000, the WCW world championship changed hands 20 times in 35 weeks. That is the same number of times the NWA world title changed between 1949 through 19880.

At the height of the WWF’s Attitude Era, the USA network was paying $42,000 an episode of Monday Night Raw. Currently, Netflix pays roughly 10 million dollars an episode.

For a brief time in 1987, Championship Wrestling From Florida attempted to become a national promotion much like the WWF, UWF and Jim Crockett Promotions. They changed the promotion’s name to American Championship Wrestling.

New Japan Pro Wrestling was the first wrestling promotion to hire a full time doctor to be ringside for matches beginning in 1988.

Tazz was spelled with 2 z’s in WWE because Time Warner owned the rights to the name Taz.

‘The Macho Man’ Randy Savage’s first entrance music was ‘Fame’ by Irene Cara.

Amy Dumas was earning $100 a show in ECW as ‘Miss Congeniality.’ That did not include travel expenses.

The Rock N Roll Express fan club was generating revenue of $100,000 a week for Jim Crockett Jr. in 1987.

Matt Lauer was briefly employed by Vince McMahon to host the World Bodybuilding Federation’s (WBF) show called ‘Body Stars’ along side Kari Wuhrer in 1991. McMahon felt that Lauer didn’t have the right look and was replaced by Vince himself. He was offered a job in the WWF, but the two sides could not agree on a contract.

Reporter John Stossel received a cash settlement from Titan Sports for $425,000 for getting slapped by David Schultz back in 1984.

In February of 2000, a repeat episode of Walker Texas Ranger on the USA network beat an unopposed hour of WCW Monday Nitro.

John Rohde was the original ‘Buddy Rogers’ in wrestling. He was the brother of Herman Rohde who eventually took over the Buddy Rogers moniker. Before that, Herman wrestled as ‘Dutch Rhode’ and as ‘Dusty Rhode.’

Speaking of Buddy Rogers, he was the first pro wrestler to appear on the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live. He appeared with Andy Kaufman in an episode in 1979.

Despite being one of the hottest independent pro wrestlers in 2002, AJ Styles worked as a full time landscaper.

The Viet Cong Express were a tag team that consisted of two Japanese wrestlers on an excursion in Canada. They were Hiroshi Hase and Fumihiro Niikura under masks and won the Stampede International tag team titles. The team was considered cursed because Niikura suffered a heart attack and forced into a brief retirement. Niikura’s replacement was another Japanese wrestler named Masanori Morimura, but suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and nearly died. Morimura was then himself replaced by a wrestler named Shinji Sasazaki, but he suffered a serious knee injury while training. Hiroshi Hase became a big star in his native Japan and a successful politician upon his retirement.

The final Raw main event under Vince McMahon as CEO of WWE featured a pose off between Bobby Lashley and Austin Theory.

If WWF New York restaurant became successful, there were plans to expand the franchise in Miami, Florida and Las Vegas, Nevada. The restaurant lasted from 1999 until 2003.

In early 1995, the World Wrestling Federation filmed a pilot for a comedy sketch show called ‘Donnybrook Theater.’ It starred Todd Pettengill as host and featured Lord Alfred Hayes in his final role before leaving the company in July of that year. Donnybrook Theater consisted of comedy sketches much like the ones that were once aired on Tuesday Night Titans. In the end, however, the show was scrapped.

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